


I'm okay, I'm good

by andromedagalaxy



Series: Philkas College Verse [36]
Category: Eyewitness (US TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 13:05:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11578659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andromedagalaxy/pseuds/andromedagalaxy
Summary: “Okay, okay, okay, okay,” Philip chants. “Okay, okay.”Lukas is behind him and arms are tight around Philip’s middle, but Philip still shakes more than he wants to. They’re in the shallow end of the pool and he keeps trying to tell himself it’s just like the tub, which he likes. But he can’t reach out and touch the ceramic walls, and despite Lukas’s close proximity, he isn’t surrounding him in the same way he does in the tub.Philip tries to remind himself that this pool is nothing like the pool from his childhood where it happened. Completely different. It’s inside, way smaller, and there are only two other people here, an old couple hanging onto the edge in the deep end. He thinks that’s why Lukas picked it, because it’s calm and away from all the insanity of the rest of the gym. No kids.





	I'm okay, I'm good

“Okay, okay, okay, okay,” Philip chants. “Okay, okay.”

Lukas is behind him and arms are tight around Philip’s middle, but Philip still shakes more than he wants to. They’re in the shallow end of the pool and he keeps trying to tell himself it’s just like the tub, which he likes. But he can’t reach out and touch the ceramic walls, and despite Lukas’s close proximity, he isn’t surrounding him in the same way he does in the tub. 

Philip tries to remind himself that this pool is nothing like the pool from his childhood where it happened. Completely different. It’s inside, way smaller, and there are only two other people here, an old couple hanging onto the edge in the deep end. He thinks that’s why Lukas picked it, because it’s calm and away from all the insanity of the rest of the gym. No kids. 

“We don’t have to do this, sweetheart,” Lukas whispers, lips brushing Philip’s ear. 

“You never call me that,” Philip says.

Lukas chuckles a little and Philip can tell he’s blushing just by the way he sounds. “Yeah, I don’t know…it just came out. Probably because you’re worrying me.”

“I am…trying to chill,” Philip says. The water is just above his belly button and he’s still got his feet on the ground. He’s wearing a pair of trunks that Lukas said make him look sexy (“sexier than usual, which is already extremely sexy”), so that’s a plus. His heart is racing.

“We’re not even gonna go down there,” Lukas says, and Philip knows he’s talking about the deep end.

Lukas knows the story.

Philip told him one of their first nights in the apartment, when things were still new and they’d bump into each other getting up in the morning, would revel in how nice it felt to be going to bed together at night. When they hadn’t made a routine yet and they were still feeling everything out, this new situation, this life where they lived on their own together. With no adults imposing rules on them.

One part of no rules meant they stayed up a lot later than they should, even when they had school the next day. And the night when the story came out they’d been sitting on the couch watching Brooklyn 99 in one of those binge-incidents that happen to them sometimes, except this one took them to the prime hour of three in the morning. And it felt like they were breaking rules even though there weren’t really rules to break, not anymore, but they were staying up late and eating ice cream out of the container and he’d been wanting to tell Lukas for a while, anyway. So the story just slipped out. 

Philip was four years old. They didn’t get to go out much but when they did, sometimes him and his mom would wind up at the public pool a couple blocks away from their place. She’d sit on one of the loungers in the corner and he’d sit on the edge on the steps, splashing his feet in the water. He didn’t really play with the other kids, only sometimes, and he’d hover near the edges, occasionally venturing out just past the steps, but never past that. 

But there was a day when there was a hoard of kids there, all rushing around and playing with each other, passing diving rings back and forth, and Philip can’t remember, not even to this day, but he wound up holding one of them, wound up chasing and being chased around the edges of the pool and for a bright shining moment he had friends, a bunch of them. They were all laughing, screaming, and Philip had looked up to see if his mom was watching. If she could see how happy he was. But her nose was in a book, and it only took a moment for him to slip. It only took a moment for someone to run into him. It only took a moment for him to topple into the deep end of the pool.

He sunk like a stone. He’d been thrashing, hollering, the water rushing into his throat, and he’ll never forget the pain. He remembers the warped vision of the bubbles traveling up to the surface, the ripples of the world above. And then he remembers darkness.

He could only tell Lukas up to that point before he started crying, and he hates how it affects him still, how something that happened so long ago reverberates through his life like those ripples on the surface of the water. He doesn’t know if he could have died. His mom wouldn’t ever talk about it, and she didn’t bring him back there again. But he can still remember how it felt. And he can still remember her screaming when he woke up.

Lukas held him while he cried and cried with him, and there’s never been a place that Philip feels safer than in Lukas’s arms. And since then Lukas always promised that if Philip ever wanted to go into the pool or the ocean, he’d be there when he was ready.

Philip soon realized it was a rare chance he’d be anywhere else but at Philip’s side.

The water moves gently around them.

“You okay?” Lukas asks, and he kisses Philip’s cheek. “We can get out.”

“No,” Philip says. “I, uh—I wanna do this. I wanted to do this.”

“You sure?” Lukas asks. “You’re in charge.”

“As per usual,” Philip quips, smiling a little bit.

Lukas scoffs. “I mean, I guess. When I want you to be.”

Philip is a big fan of reclaiming things, despite how long it takes him to do it. Creating good memories to paste on top of bad ones, pressing them down hard, shining bright light on the here and now. He won’t allow something like this to be taken from him forever. He wants to have water. He wants water to be available to him if he needs it, if he wants it, if he feels like going for a goddamn swim one afternoon. And he knows Lukas can help him take it back. 

Because wet Lukas is amazing. And the two of them wet and touching each other is even more amazing. And the image that’s been running on a reel in his mind is sharing a kiss with Lukas under the water. Because even though the memory of what happened to him is still sharp, it’s been fading ever since he had to overcome his fear and pull Lukas out of the lake. And he loves the way Lukas moves all the time, everywhere, so the idea of Lukas swimming has been something he’s been anxious to see. Knowing that someone so beautiful, graceful and lovely, strong and fucking perfect belongs to him—that he can kiss him anytime, anywhere—

Philip can do this. He can do this.

He hopes he can do this.

“You wanna walk forward a little bit?” Lukas asks. 

“Sure,” Philip says, swallowing hard. 

They do. Philip focuses on Lukas’s hands, how the two of them are moving like one through the water. He definitely doesn’t focus on how they’re getting deeper, how much water is around them, how they’re venturing further and further away from the shallow water. It raises up til it’s at the base of his neck and Philip stops, sucking in a breath.

“You’re okay,” Lukas says.

“I’m okay.”

“You’re good,” Lukas says.

“I’m good,” Philip repeats.

“Lukas is the sexiest man in the entire world and I want nothing more than to spend my life admiring him,” Lukas says.

Philip looks over his shoulder, narrowing his eyes. 

“What?” Lukas asks. “I thought you were repeating after me.”

Philip snorts, shaking his head. “You’re ridiculous.”

Lukas leans in, kissing his cheek softly. “You wanna go to the side and try to do some kicks or something? Learn some strokes?”

“Maybe,” Philip says, and he feels Lukas’s hand press over his heart. Philip is getting used to the way the water moves around their bodies, slipping through Lukas’s fingers. “I maybe wanna—maybe wanna go under the water.”

“Philip, you definitely don’t have to do that,” Lukas says. “I remember—and this is not about pushing you. This is about easing you into it, like you said. So we can go to Coney Island and maybe go into the water there—”

“The ocean is huge,” Philip says, getting a little lightheaded just thinking about it.

“Yes, but we’d get you a float or something.”

“I could float away.”

“I’d put a leash on you like a child,” Lukas says.

“Uh, no you wouldn’t,” Philip says, laughing. 

“I know,” Lukas says, nuzzling Philip’s neck above the waterline. “I’d hold your hand and never let you go.” He kisses his neck a couple times and it makes Philip go a little boneless in his arms. “But we’re also doing this so we can go in the boats at Thanksgiving. It’ll be nice, Helen and Gabe in one, us in the other, Dad taking pictures from the dock.”

“It’d be a lot deeper if I fell in there,” Philip says, trying not to think about it. He keeps thinking about the kiss. Kissing Lukas underwater would be really cute if they did it right. And maybe he can get a GoPro camera and take pictures of them kissing underwater and include them in his portfolio.

“You know how to tread water, right?” Lukas asks. He turns Philip around in his arms and looks him in the eyes. “Wanna try it?” 

“How much further out should we go?” Philip asks, trying to sound open to the idea. He tries to think of his mom up in heaven. He doesn’t know how life after death is, because who fucking does? But after another late night conversation with Lukas Philip realized that thinking of their moms together, somewhere nice, is the best way to ease his mind. He thinks of them drinking tea, some kind of fruity tea that he and Lukas had decided they’d both like—maybe on a nice sunny porch. Talking about their sons. It makes Philip feel good, to think of it that way. 

He knows she’d be proud of him for trying, here.

“Only a little bit—you okay?”

“I’m okay.”

“You good?”

“I’m good.”

“Lukas is—”

Philip snorts, reaching out and pressing his fingers over Lukas’s lips. “Shut up,” he says, smiling. 

Lukas grins, and he looks a little flushed in here under this light, the tips of his hair dripping with water. His eyes are a brighter blue, deeper, with more shine. 

“Let’s go closer to the side,” he says. He switches their positions so Lukas has his back to the deep end and he takes Philip’s hands under the water, slowly leading him to the side, then forward. They keep going until Philip’s toes barely touch the floor. He gasps a little bit, tipping his chin up.

“Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth,” Lukas says, keeping his eyes locked with Philip’s. 

Philip starts doing it, his heart beating wildly. He thinks he’s stupid. The incident happened forever ago. Years and years and years. He shouldn’t still feel like this. He shouldn’t still be afraid. But it’s like his entire body is threatening to give out, to fall into a pit of panic. 

“Baby, focus on me,” Lukas says. “Stay vertical. I’m gonna let go of your hands and keep them on your waist, okay?”

Philip trusts him. “Okay.”

Lukas does and Philip immediately starts drawing his hands back and forth through the water, kicking his legs. Lukas’s hands rest on his waist and feel like safe weights, how they feel when they’re together in bed and Lukas is pressing promises into his skin. 

Lukas laughs, joyously, looking him up and down. “You’re doing it, Philip. You’re treading water!”

Philip looks down at his own body. He can vaguely remember learning how. Memories that are so buried underneath the incident that he didn’t know if he could ever find them again. Him and his mother in the pool. Her in that pink one-piece she loved so much. The images are hazy but they’re there, drawn to the surface by Lukas’s steady hands. 

They do this for each other. Make each other remember the good things, the things they’d lost, the things they’d forgotten. Lukas kisses hope into Philip’s mouth and breathes new life into his lungs.

Philip laughs a little at Lukas’s giant smile, smiling too. “Okay, good, let’s—let’s move back a little bit.”

“Okay,” Lukas says, nodding happily. 

“I wanna go under the water, I think,” Philip says, the two of them drifting back until Philip’s feet are solid on the bottom of the pool again.

“You don’t have to,” Lukas says. “I swear.”

Philip sighs, the smile on his face getting wider. “Lukas, I wanna kiss you under the water.”

Stark realization presents itself on Lukas’s face and his mouth falls open. Then it shifts into a sly smile. “Oh, I get you, Shea.”

“Of course you get me, after I had to spell it out for you,” Philip says.

“I don’t want you to feel unsafe!” Lukas exclaims. 

“I always feel safe with you,” Philip says, blushing a little bit.

Lukas slides forward, winding his arm around Philip’s waist until they’re nose to nose. “Take a deep breath and let me lead you,” he says.

Philip nods. 

“One, two…three.”

They both take a breath and once Lukas sees Philip did it, he draws him down under the water. Philip is shaking out of his own volition but he focuses on Lukas’s hands, Lukas’s body. The world narrows down to a strange white noise in his ears, everything heavier. He knew he wanted to open his eyes under the water when he decided on doing this, but when he does he can’t see much. Only a bright spot where Lukas is, and before Philip knows it Lukas is cupping his face and bringing their mouths together. Philip parts his lips a little bit but doesn’t dare open his mouth too wide—but it’s nice, comforting, better than he would have expected. Like Lukas is in charge of the water, manipulating it with his hands, enveloping Philip with warmth and a wet, pliable body. It lasts a couple moments and Philip clings to him, their chests pressing together, and then Lukas is bringing them back to the surface again, never breaking the kiss.

Philip gasps against his mouth when they’re back in the open air. 

“Mmm, that’s the first time I’ve ever done that,” Lukas says. When Philip opens his eyes he can see the water caught on Lukas’s eyelashes. “Everything you wanted?”

“More,” Philip says. 

“We can work up to real swimming, maybe get you some real lessons—”

“No, I just want you,” Philip says. “You know how to swim.”

Lukas laughs, rubbing his hand up and down Philip’s back. “Okay, if you trust me.”

“Yes,” Philip says, simply. He can’t imagine trusting anyone else with something this important. “But for now we’ll—work on treading, til we go home for Thanksgiving.”

“And floating,” Lukas says. “I know you’ll be able to float.”

Lukas has had Philip floating since he first put hands on him back in Tivoli, but he feels like they’ve hit their cheesy limit for the day, so he stays silent. Instead, he leans in, wrapping his arms around Lukas tighter, burying his face in his neck. 

“Thank you,” Philip whispers. 

“Of course, babe,” Lukas says, holding him. “You know I’d do anything for you.”

Philip knows. And he couldn’t be more grateful. He never thought there’d be a person he could share his whole life with—share his dreams with, his nightmares, the things that he never thought he’d be able to face. But Lukas is like an extension of himself, a soulmate in every sense of the word. 

Sometimes Philip doesn’t know how they found each other, in the midst of all the chaos. But he knows they’re gonna lead each other through all of it, everything. Hand in hand. No matter what.


End file.
